Pages

Monday, 31 March 2014

The Art rooms have been very busy with new clay work from the yr 10 and yr 11 students.
The work in the photos below are yr 10 clay tiles, ideas are in abstract forms from their own personal projects.
Pieces have been bisque fired then fired again with stoneware glazes and glass shards from recycled wine bottles inserted into the recesses.
Amazingly only 3 glaze colours were used on these, the varied colours are due to different coloured glass onto of these 3 glazes.

Sunday, 2 March 2014

I have been wanting to fire on drawings and images onto my ceramic ware for ages, but there does seem to be an awful lot of rubbish transfer sheets that just don't withstand firings and the paper is so costly that it makes it so unaffordable to experiment with this technique; then there is finding the right laser jet printer with the correct amount of oxide to print onto, it is a minefield.

There are several ways to apply decals/transfers/silk screens onto ceramic ware so I decided to do my proof sheets of images and drawings and get them sent away to a company called Foto ceramic who do all the techi stuff for you.
It has saved a shed load of hassle and I received my printed sheets a day later, so I was good to go with the first firing (all be it an experiment in itself)

Here are the sheets:

These are the original sheets with my doodles, drawings and images on them that were resized and sent to Foto Ceramic.

A day later the sheets arrived through the post printed onto the ceramic paper.

Then I had to carefully snip around each image as I was warned some of the background paper colour may show through after the firing and I didn't want that, (I am after less transfer look more fired into the piece, if that makes sense.)

After cutting each one out I placed them where I wanted them on these pre-glazed and bisque test pieces. I also used them on a few ceramic buttons I had left over from a Christmas stall. As this firing was an experiment I wasn't sure if these would look any good, so I fired the kiln half full.

These are all ready to pop into the kiln now ready to be fired. I will post the results soon when the kiln has cooled.

LinkWithin

MUD HANDS........A visual diary of what I make.

Print, texture and clay formations, practical Ideas and functional art that can be used for both purpose and style.
Here is where i document my successes and failings as both enable me to push on and are equally important in the making process.

Valentine Clays share friendly and knowledgable advice about their clays & raw materials from the smallest to the largest projects and offer a vast selection of clay bodies and will invariably send a few tester clays for you to try. Click to visit.